L'Acadie Postnationale: Producing Franco-Canadian Identity in the Globalized Economy

• Main Author: McLaughlin, Mireille
• Other Authors: Heller, Monica
• Language: en_ca
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: linguistic minorities; state; globalization; 0326
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/24827

Language is at the center of much debate in l’Acadie, a Francophone community in what has always been a peripheral region of, first, European Empires, and next, the North American market. Now, mobilizing neoliberal ideologies, Acadian community leaders and the Canadian federal government are striving to develop the global commodification of Acadian culture, through arts and tourism, as a way to ensure the reproduction of Acadian identity in a global economy. The Acadian art scene, first institutionalized as a space for the protection of Acadian culture and the French language by community organizations and the State, has long been a privileged space for the production and reproduction of nationalist understandings of Acadian culture. The commodification of culture is a site of ideological tensions on questions of nationalism as, simultaneously, increased urbanization and the democratization of the media is challenging the nationalist understanding of Acadian identity, as artists and community organizations claim a space of multilingualism in their work. In this presentation, I will draw on data I collected in a multisited ethnography, to show how the push for commodification is a source of tension for the Acadian community. I track ideologies of language from the government decision-making to the production and circulation of Acadian art, to analyze the tensions Acadian artists and community organizers experience as they try to enter or maintain themselves in the global economy, through the use of web-based media, alterglobalizing networks or government and private sponsorships. I will show how the institutionalization of languages as homogeneous is constraining the field of Acadian art, as actors are deploying diverse strategies to participate within or critique the existing networks.